Is a Two-State Solution (Israel and Palestine) an Acceptable Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?

David Remnick, Editor of the New Yorker, in a Nov. 17, 2014 article titled "The One-State Reality," available at the New Yorker website, stated:

"The one-state/two-state debate is highly fraught not least because of proximity. Too much history, too little land. This is not India and Pakistan; the map of Ireland is a veritable continent compared with Israel and the Palestinian territories. Gaza is about as close to Herzliya as Concord is to Hanover; the West Bank, as Israelis are quick to point out, is seven miles from Ben Gurion Airport. Any two-state solution with a chance of working would have to include federal arrangements not only about security but also about water, cell-phone coverage, sewage, and countless other details of a common infrastructure. Talk of a one-state solution, limited as it is, will never be serious if it is an attempt to mask annexation, expulsion, or population transfer, on one side, or the eradication of an existing nation, on the other. Israel exists; the Palestinian people exist. Neither is provisional. Within these territorial confines, two nationally distinct groups, who are divided by language, culture, and history, cannot live wholly apart or wholly together."

The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah, in a June 23, 2015 press release titled "Joint Israeli Palestinian Poll, June 2015," available from the PCPSR website, wrote:

"Compared to our findings in June 2014, support for the two-state solution decreases among Israelis from 62% to 51% and among Palestinians from 54% to 51%...

56% of Palestinians think that Israel's goals in the long run are to extend its borders to cover all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and expel its Arab citizens. 25% think the goals are to annex the West Bank while denying political rights to the Palestinians.

43% of the Israelis think that the Palestinian aspirations in the long run are to conquer the State of Israel and destroy much of the Jewish population in Israel; 18% think the goals of the Palestinians are to conquer the State of Israel."

The Pew Research Center, in an Apr. 29, 2014 article titled, "Public Divided over Whether Israel, Independent Palestinian State Can Coexist," available from the Pew Research Center website, wrote:

"Amid the breakdown of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, the [US] public is divided over whether a way can be found for a peaceful two-state solution in the Middle East. Overall, 46% say an independent Palestinian state can coexist peacefully with Israel, 44% do not think this can happen. A year ago, 50% thought it was possible for an independent Palestinian state to exist peacefully alongside Israel, 41% did not.

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center… finds that Republicans are particularly skeptical about the prospects for a peaceful two-state solution: just 34% think a way can be found for this to happen. Independents (50%) and Democrats (52%) are more optimistic that a solution can be found.

A landmark 2013 Pew Research survey of Jewish Americans found 61% of U.S. Jews expressing optimism about the possibility of a peaceful two-state solution. A Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, conducted last spring, found that 50% of Israelis and just 14% of Palestinians believed that a peaceful two-state solution was possible. That report found optimism for a two-state solution was highest in France (71%) and lowest in Lebanon (11%) and the Palestinian territories, among the 13 countries surveyed."

John Kerry, JD, former US Secretary of State, in a Dec. 28, 2016 press conference, a transcript of which is available from Time.com in the article titled "Read John Kerry's Full Speech on Israeli Settlements and a Two-State Solution," stated:

"[T]he two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, living in peace and security with its neighbors. It is the only way to ensure a future of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people, and it is an important way of advancing United States interests in the region."

Lara Friedman, MA, Director of Policy and Government Relations for Americans for Peace Now, in an Oct. 14, 2016 statement delivered at the United Nations Security Council, a transcript of which is available from the Peace Now website under the title "Statement by Lara Friedman, Americans for Peace Now Delivered at the United Nations Security Council - October 14, 2016," stated:

"[T]he two-state solution is not a goal in itself. Rather, it is a political compromise to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a solution that has consistently been embraced by majorities of both Israelis and Palestinians and their political leaderships. And it is the only solution that offers Israelis and Palestinians alike the hope for a normal life – a better life – for their children and their children's children.

But with every day that passes, Israeli settlement policies further cement a one-state reality on the ground, making the two-state solution harder to imagine, let alone achieve...

And that is why, on behalf of Americans for Peace Now, I urge you here today to finally take action in the Security Council to send a clear message to Israel that the international community stands by the two-state solution and unambiguously rejects policies that undermine it – including Israeli settlement policies."

Benjamin Miller, PhD, Professor of International Relations at the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa (Israel) in an Aug. 16th, 2016 article for Ethnopolitics titled "Israel–Palestine: One State or Two: Why a Two-State Solution is Desirable, Necessary, and Feasible," wrote:

"The only possible peaceful solution is one of two-states for two nations based on the exchange of 'refugees for settlers.' This would enable the formation of two relatively, even if not perfectly, nationally congruent states...

Moreover, the key aspiration of both Palestinians and Israelis is national independence. This is the basic quest of both the Zionist and the Palestinian national movements and the Jewish Israeli and the Palestinian peoples. Thus, the two-state solution can meet the key aspiration even if not meeting additional secondary desires (such as the control over the whole area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River).

Further, two-states for the two nations is the most effective way of minimizing state-to-nation imbalances. Partition resolves the 'nation without state' and the stateless refugees problem for the Palestinian imbalance, while producing a clear-cut Jewish majority state in Israel instead of the unstable and imbalanced de-facto bi-national situation."

Barack Obama, JD, 44th President of the United States, in May 14, 2015 remarks at a press conference at Camp David after meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), available from the White House website, stated:

"We reiterate the urgent need for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians… I continue to believe that a two-state solution is absolutely vital for not only peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but for the long-term security of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state."

Mahmoud Abbas, Csc, President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in a Jan. 2014 interview with Israeli lawyer and 2000 Camp David Summit negotiator Gilead Sher, available from the Mondoweiss website under the title "Abbas Lays Out His Two-State Vision in Video Address to Israeli Security Conference," stated:

"[T]he two-state vision must become real in which the State of Israel will live alongside the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders in security and stability. The second most important section is that East Jerusalem be the capital of the Palestinian state. Jerusalem will remain open to all religions with arrangements between the two parties. The borders of the Palestinian state will eventually be in the hands of Palestinians, not the Israeli army. The refugee issue must be addressed based on the guidelines of the Arab Peace Initiative which calls for just and agreed solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees according to UNGA resolution 194. If the elements are honored, I believe this will be an acceptable, lasting and legitimate solution. The agreement will be applied to both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and to the safe passage between them."

Yehiel Hilik Bar, MA, member of the Knesset for the Labor Party and Chair of the Knesset Caucus to Resolve the Israeli-Arab Conflict, in a Jan. 6, 2015, Op-Ed for the Jewish Week titled "Time to Recognize the Palestinian State," wrote:

"[W]e, the Israelis, should recognize the Palestinian state, and then we should argue over the borders. Let's name it and turn the 'Palestinian entity' into a state, and then we can enter into the stormy border negotiations. A political horizon and the two-state solution are both possible and achievable…

Israeli recognition of Palestinian statehood will tangibly advance the two-state vision and will eliminate the dangerous one-state vision that extremists on the right and the left are advancing, among us and among the Palestinians. We have to be honest with ourselves. There is simply no option beyond a two-state solution that will preserve the Zionist dream. One state would be the end of the Zionist dream and it would eliminate the dream of the Palestinians to have a state of their own. With this, we would doom ourselves to perpetual conflict, a lose-lose situation."

Riyad al-Maliki, PhD, Foreign Affairs Minister for the Palestinian National Authority, in a Mar. 29, 2011 presentation at The Peres Center for Peace conference titled "The Peace Process: 17 Plans in 10 Years," available at YouTube, stated:

"A bi-national state is a disaster... The position of the Palestinian Authority is to have a two state solution... and we have been fighting to have an independent Palestinian state next to the State of Israel. We want to live as an independent, sovereign state of Palestine next to the State of Israel. And we don't want to be part of a state with Israel. A bi-national state is a disaster to Israel and it is a disaster to us."

The European Union (EU), in "The EU & the Middle East Peace Process" section of its website, available from the European Union External Action website (accessed Aug. 18, 2015), stated:

"The Resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is a fundamental interest of the EU. The EU's objective is a two-state solution with an independent, democratic, viable and contiguous Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours. The EU has been deeply concerned about developments on the ground, which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. The only way to resolve the conflict is through an agreement that ends the occupation which began in 1967, that ends all claims and that fulfils the aspirations of both parties. A one state reality would not be compatible with these aspirations."

Richard Luce, Lord, Life Peer in the House of Lords (UK), in a Mar. 5, 2015 statement to the House of Lords Grand Committee on the subject of Israel and Palestine, the transcript of which is available in the Hansard at the United Kingdom Parliament website, stated:

"[T]he prospects for a two-state solution are receding. Secretary of State Kerry's sterling efforts have produced regrettably few results, perhaps because he addressed only part of the problem. But the international community cannot give up. Credible polls show that the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians still want a two-state solution. The only alternatives are the status quo or a binational state of some kind. Both are a dead end. The status quo means drift, more settlements, Gaza imprisoned and isolated with more extremism, and Israel retreating to another Masada fortress… There is no secure future in the status quo for Israelis or Palestinians.

As to the binational state or one-state solution, Kerry's withdrawn public reference to apartheid was in fact right. The population trends show that there are at present 6 million Israeli Jews, with a similar and rapidly growing population of Palestinians living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. If this is to be a Jewish nation, it would, in all likelihood, lead to an apartheid nation of Bantustans, where democracy would be undermined by the treatment of Palestinians as second-class citizens. Israel would be at serious risk of no longer providing a permanent home for the Jews, but of destroying itself through civil strife and international condemnation…

[G]iven leadership and determination, Israelis and Palestinians can still reach a two-state solution and that the dangers for all parties in the alternatives still outweigh the challenges of reaching a peace settlement."

Gershon Baskin, PhD, founding Co-Chair of the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) and columnist for the Jerusalem Post, in an Aug. 12, 2015 post on the 'Insights' section of his website titled "The One and Only Solution," wrote:

"There is only one solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if 'solution' means ending the conflict, and that is two states for two peoples. This is axiomatic [self-evident/unquestionable] because this conflict is between two national movements which have proven their willingness to fight, die and kill so that each could have a territorial expression of their identity. Each side is fighting for a land they can call their own, on which they express their identity, and through which their identity is expressed. Both movements are fighting over the same piece of land. The option of one united peaceful state with a homogenized identity – the United States of Israel-Palestine – is not real because neither side wants a homogenized identity; both sides are willing to continue to fight, with even more passion and venom so that the one state takes on their own identity.

When I meet Israelis and Palestinians who advocate the so-called 'one state solution,' as soon as I dig below the nice slogans, what I find is that the Israelis are talking about a Jewish state with a large Arab minority and the Palestinians are talking about a Palestinian state with a large Jewish minority. Neither side of the so-called 'one-staters' is really willing to give up its dream of the territorial expression of its identity.

So like it or not… we do not have a choice – there has to be a two-state solution, and obviously the longer we procrastinate in making the hard decisions, the more difficult it will be."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, in the Foreign Policy section of its website under the subheading "Middle East Peace Process" (accessed Sep. 16, 2015), wrote:

"Turkey desires earnestly a just and lasting settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which lies beneath the problems in the Middle East, through mutual negotiations on the basis of a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders, and in the framework of the relevant Resolutions of the UN Security Council (242, 338, 1397, 1515), the principle of land for peace, the Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative. Moreover, Turkey wishes the completion of the Middle East Peace Process through concurrent revitalization of peace talks in other tracks, such as Israel-Syria and Israel-Lebanon."

Amos Oz, Full Professor of Hebrew Literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel), in a Mar. 7, 2015 Op-Ed for the LA Times titled "For Its Survival, Israel Must Abandon the One-State Option," wrote:

"If there are not two states, there will be one. If there is one, it will be Arab… One Arab state from Jordan to the Mediterranean. Not a binational state. For to expect Palestinians and Israelis, having inflicted so much pain on each other for so long, to suddenly turn a page onto harmonious, co-equal cohabitation in one state seems delusional.

Thus, absent two states, and as equality in binationalism is a fantasy, the prospects of one Arab state undoing our Zionist dream looms large…

It is either two states by choice or one — Arab — state by default… This little house of ours must be partitioned to two smaller apartments. And let there be a good fence between them, contributing to good neighborliness. Once divorced, let us experience coexistence and leave notions of possible cohabitation to future generations. Ours is not a Hollywood western of good vs. evil. It is a real life tragedy of two just causes. We can continue to clash, inflicting further pain. Or we can be reconciled via separation and compromise."

J Street, an American "pro-Israel pro-peace" non-profit organization, in the "J Street Core Principles" section of its website, available at jstreet.org (accessed Sep. 16, 2015), wrote:

"The future of Israel ultimately depends on achieving a two-state resolution to the conflict with the Palestinian people. The Palestinians too must have a national home of their own, living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. It serves Israel's and America's interests, and it is right and just.

Israel must choose among three things: being a Jewish homeland, remaining democratic and maintaining control over all the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. It can only have two — it can only be both Jewish and democratic by giving up the land on which a Palestinian state can be built in exchange for peace.

For too long, pro-Israel advocacy has defined this conflict in zero-sum terms, as 'us versus them,' a conflict in which there can be only one winner. But being pro-Israel doesn't require an 'anti.' Israel's long-term security actually depends on fulfilling the aspirations of the Palestinian people through a two-state solution."

Ami Ayalon, MA, former Head of the Israeli Navy and Shin-Bet, Israel's secret service, and former Minister and Member of Knesset for the Labor Party, in an Apr. 23, 2012 Op-Ed for the New York Times titled "Peace Without Partners," stated:

"We recognize that a comprehensive peace agreement is unattainable right now. We should strive, instead, to establish facts on the ground by beginning to create a two-state reality in the absence of an accord. Imperfect as it is, this plan would reduce tensions and build hope among both Israelis and Palestinians, so that they in turn would press their leaders to obtain a two-state solution. Most important, as Israel celebrates 64 years of independence later this week, it would let us take our destiny into our own hands and act in our long-term national interest, without blaming the Palestinians for what they do or don't do."

Zehava Galon, PhD, Israeli Knesset member for the Meretz party, in a Feb. 13, 2011 interview with +972 titled "Is It Time to Move on to the One-State Solution?" available from 972mag.com, stated:

"The one-state solution is a dangerous and mistaken illusion.

I believe that the State of Israel is the self determination of the Jewish Nation, a state for all citizens, and a state which grants communal rights to National minorities within it. Just as I defend Israel's right to exist, despite my criticism, I also struggle for the establishment of a Palestinian state that will put into practice Palestinians' right to Statehood.

The demand to release Palestinians from the oppression of the Occupation is not only a human rights demand. Rather, it is a demand for the end of the conflict, for a division of land based on an agreement, in the spirit of the Arab League and Geneva Initiatives. The suggestion to establish one state, both when it comes from the radical left or from the right, will not only deter from reaching peace but will establish a new conflict over control over the one state.

Unlike them, I want to end the occupation, but not to end the state of Israel. I want to change the state I'm living it [sic], but I don't want to give up our independence. I believe that the Palestinians wouldn't want to give up the hope for their own nation-state as well."

Michael Lerner, PhD, Founding Editor of TIKKUN Magazine, in the "Core Vision for Political and Social Change" section of the TIKKUN Magazine website (accessed Sep. 16, 2015), wrote:

"We call upon Israel to end the Occupation, to return settlers to the pre-1967 borders of Israel (providing them with decent housing) or allowing settlers to stay in the West Bank but only by renouncing Israeli citizenship and agreeing to live as law-abiding citizens of a Palestinian state subject to Palestinian laws and courts and without any recourse to Israeli courts or Israeli military intervention, and to take major (though not total) responsibility for Palestinian refugees...

We call upon the Palestinian people to acknowledge the right of Jews to maintain their own homeland in the pre-1967 borders of the state of Israel, with Jewish control over the Jewish section of Jerusalem (including French Hill and Mt. Scopus and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City) and the Western Wall, and unimpeded access to the cemetery on the Mount of Olives...

At this point in time, the NSP [Network of Spiritual Progressives] and the TIKKUN Community is supporting a two-state rather than a bi-national solution to the Israel-Palestinian crisis, even though some members of our community believe that such a bi-national state is the only way to achieve social justice for Palestinians."

Americans for Peace Now (APN), the sister organization of Shalom Achshav, a non-governmental advocacy and activist group based in Israel, in the "Where We Stand" section of their Americans for Peace Now website, (accessed Sep. 16, 2015), wrote:

"We believe unequivocally that Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace are essential to Israel's security, well-being, and viability as a Jewish state and a democracy…

We know that the achievement of Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace will require the establishment of a sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace and security alongside Israel, both within recognized borders. We embrace the two-state solution as the only viable option for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…

The borders of these states must be based on the 1967 lines, including the removal of most settlements and with any changes in those lines achieved through mutually agreed-on land swaps. An agreement must enable and support the emergence of a state of Palestine that is maximally contiguous and politically and economically viable, with its capital in East Jerusalem."

The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, in a 2015 report titled "The Costs of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," available from www.rand.org, wrote:

"A two-state solution provides by far the best economic outcomes for both Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis gain over two times more than the Palestinians in absolute terms - $123 billion versus $50 billion over ten years. But the Palestinians gain more proportionately, with average per capita income increasing by approximately 36 percent over what it would have been in 2024, versus 5 percent for the average Israeli."

Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Foreign Minister at the time of the quote, in a June 23, 2010 Op-Ed for the Jerusalem Post titled "My Blueprint for a Resolution," wrote:

"The solution lies not in appeasing the maximalist territorial demands of the Palestinians, but in truly creating 'two states for two peoples'…

Therefore, for a lasting and fair solution, there needs to be an exchange of populated territories to create two largely homogeneous states, one Jewish Israeli and the other Arab Palestinian. Of course, this is not to preclude that minorities will remain in either state where they will receive full civil rights."

"We are gravely concerned that a one-state 'solution' would both mean the end of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state and create the circumstances for a human rights catastrophe. Despite claims to the contrary, the creation of a binational state would be both radical and antithetical to genuine peace.

The one-state idea marks a departure from the well-established premise of 'two states for two peoples,' a solution supported by a strong majority of both Israelis and Palestinians. Support for a binational state ignores the undeniable fact that Israeli and Palestinian societies are drastically different in terms of economic development, political orientation, and cultural identity—a situation which would not change with the removal of a political border. Given the two sides' history of mutual hostility and resentment, the creation of a single state will likely lead to violent ethnic conflict, a result desired by none but the most radical elements in the region. As a result, a majority of experts across the political spectrum agree that despite difficulties in reaching an agreement, a two-state solution is far preferable to a one-state non-solution."

Tzipi Livni, LLB, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Acting Prime Minister of Israel at the time of the quote, in a Nov. 27, 2007 speech, the transcript of which is titled "Address by FM Livni to the Annapolis Conference," available on the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, stated:

"I am proud at where Israel is today. I am sorry that the Arab world rejected the principle of partition in the past, and I hope and pray that today there is an understanding that instead of fighting, the right thing to do is to build a shared future in two separate states: one - the State of Israel, which was established as a Jewish state, a national home for the Jewish people; and the other - Palestine - which will be established to give a full and complete solution to Palestinians wherever they may be."

Marcia Freedman, MA, Founding President of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, in a June 28, 2007 article for the Foundation for Middle East Peace titled "The Cheshire Cat, the Pit Bull, and Us," wrote:

"The American Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace community must now, more imperatively than ever, adhere to its core policies of promoting a genuine two-state solution along the lines of the Taba talks of 2000 or the Geneva Accord of 2004. And that means the establishment of a Palestinian state in at least 97.6 percent of the West Bank, Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. If that is to happen at all, it must happen soon, because with every delay in the peace process, with every derailment, with every period of neglect, the settlers and their supporters in the Israeli army, the developers and their supporters in the government, are busy building and expanding Jewish areas of settlement, shrinking the space for a Palestinian state and real, durable peace from one day to the next."

Ismail Haniya, Senior Political Leader of Hamas, in a Feb. 26, 2006 interview with the Washington Post titled "We Do Not Wish to Throw Them Into the Sea," stated:

"If Israel withdraws to the '67 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages... Number one, we will establish a situation of stability and calm which will bring safety for our people - what Sheikh [Ahmed] Yassin [a Hamas founder] called a long-term hudna [truce]... If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognize them."

Daphne Tsimhoni, PhD, Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Arts at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (IIT), in a Dec. 1, 2005 email to ProCon.org, wrote:

"The only solution can be a political one achieved by peace negotiations and compromise, mutual recognition and acceptance. Israel should recognize the existence of a Palestinian state and withdraw from the vast majority of its settlements in the occupied territories. Minor border alterations on the basis of land exchange by agreement can allow some Jewish settlements stay under the PA [Palestinian Authority]. At the same time the Palestinians should stop terrorist activities and convince the Israelis that they accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. They should declare their withdrawal from the right of return and accept the solution of resettlement, compensation and rehabilitation as specified in the UN decision 194 section iii. At the end of negotiations a solution can be found for Jerusalem and particularly the Old City and the Holy Places."

Kenneth Stein, PhD, William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History and Israeli Studies (ISMI) at Emory University, in a May 2002 Rivista Italiana Di Geopoliti article titled "American Mediation of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Positive Assessment of the April 2002 Powell Mission," available from the ISMI Emory website, wrote:

"The Palestinian quest for self-determination just like the State of Israel cannot be physically destroyed; Israel can not absorb 3 million Palestinians and still be a majority Jewish state. Separating the two communities, the partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean and the creation of two independent states remains as it has been for over sixty years the only viable options for a political solution."

Jake Novak, MJ, Senior Columnist for CNBC.com, in a Feb. 15, 2017 article for CNBC.com titled "Why Trump Is right to Back Away from the 'Two-State Solution' in the Middle East," wrote:

"That two-state "solution" has never been a solution at all. In fact, it's just one of the many U.S. policies supposedly meant to support peace that has done just the opposite...

Israelis have agreed to a Palestinian state at least four times since 1947. The Palestinians have rejected it each time. The U.S. and Europe have responded each time by providing more economic aid to the Palestinians and pressuring Israel to make more concessions. That hasn't worked...

Israel should continue to build and expand, and annex all the existing West Bank territories into Israel proper. Israeli citizenship, with all the rights and privileges it entails, should be offered to all its inhabitants. This is not a crazy idea, but a simple recipe that worked in Israel proper for generations and has produced too many Jewish and Arab success stories to count...

Arabs, Jews, and Christians are living relatively peacefully and much more prosperously in Israel proper and have been for years. It's time for everyone living in the West Bank territories to enjoy the same rights and opportunities and not the time for anyone to insist on more racially and religiously segregated states."

Sharif Nashashibi, MA, freelance journalist and analyst on Arab Affairs, in a Mar. 24th, 2016 opinion piece titled "Israel-Palestine: The Delusion of a Two-State Solution," available from the Al Jazeera website, wrote:

"Those who continue to portray a two-state solution as a possibility are - inadvertently or otherwise - providing Israel with cover to continue wiping Palestine off the map, because the point of no return seems to forever be on the horizon, and as long as that is the case, Israel can avoid blame for passing the point of no return...

There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way people view the conflict and ways to solve it. That involves acknowledging that Israel has created a one-state reality, and finding ways to make that state equitable rather than a vehicle for the apartheid system that exists today.

This is actually easier than with two states, because issues of separation - borders, settlements, East Jerusalem, resources - no longer become the insurmountable obstacles they currently are.

Nevertheless, the debate over the desirability of one state for both peoples is moot given that the two-state solution is no longer feasible."

"I realize that for the past several years there has been both on the Democratic and Republican side the notion that we will be able to achieve Middle East peace by something called the two-state solution. I wanna be on record, and I know that this would not even be agreeable to some of you, because there are many Republicans who think that the two-state solution is in fact a solution. I consider it no solution whatsoever. There cannot be two states polling for the same piece of real estate especially when one of those states does not believe the other one even has a right to exist much less exist peacefully.

[Y]ou can't have two governments wanting to own the same piece of real estate, so why don't we leave it in the hands of the government to whom it was originally given and why don't we leave it into the hands of those who will protect not only the antiquities but respect the religions, not only of the Jews, but also of the Muslims, and of the Christians."

Haroon Moghul, MA, Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), in a Mar. 24, 2015 article for Religion Dispatches titled "A One-State Solution for Israel and Why It Will Work," available at the Religion Dispatches website, wrote:

"Get over it, folks. Not happening. The time for a two-state solution passed in the previous millennium...

It's highly unlikely Israel will uproot its settlers, especially considering the strength of support they can summon in election after election.

Not to mention, I do not believe Palestinians would accept the kind of state that's condescendingly offered to them in any such conversation about two-state 'solutions'. Any Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, and who, really, would accept that—that's not sovereignty, that's (at best) autonomy, and if you're going to be merely autonomous, why even uphold the fiction of statehood?

Think about it: If you had been militarily occupied and attacked for years by the same country, would you accept a 'sovereign' state which had no ability to defend itself? Palestinians, furthermore, don't just have every reason to be wary of Israel's intentions, and its powerful military, but of many of their neighbors' as well...

We've left the two-state solution long behind. God forbid we leave the one-state behind, too."

William Roe Polk, MA, PhD, foreign policy consultant, in a July 9, 2014 article, "We Should All Be Frightened by What's Happening in Israel," available at the History News Network website, stated:

"I have listened for my whole professional life to a false dialogue. For years, policy makers and opinion leaders have argued over 'solutions' that are unreal or at last tangential: We keep chanting the dirge: one can almost put it to music -- one state or two states. Neither is realistic and even if feasible would not solve the fundamental problem. But we seem to believe that, if we can say one or the other often enough, one of them might become acceptable. It is time to drop the nonsense and face the simple facts. They are:

In the 'one state,' the Arabs will be the subjugated minority with few rights and little or any security -- they will be the 'Jews' of an Israeli Germany or an Israeli Imperial Russia, cooped up in ghettos, imprisoned, driven into exile or subjected to a final partition. They, their children and their grandchildren will sporadically resist. Their resistance will call forth more hatred and more reprisal. The cycle will continue.

In the 'two states,' those living in the truncated remnants of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza) will be condemned to perpetual poverty and humiliation. They will have almost no usable agricultural land and virtually no water. They will be cut off from possible markets for what little they can produce. They can have no hope of manufacturing because their draw on electricity will be squeezed. Even the limited money they can earn will be closely controlled and often blocked by the Israeli Central Bank as it now is. They will have limited access to health facilities, educational institutions and even contact with one another, segregated as they are and will be by restricted zones, walls and standing security and military forces. They, their children and their grandchildren will sporadically resist or attempt to strike back."

Musa al-Gharbi, MA, Managing Editor at the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC), in a Jan. 6, 2015 Op-Ed titled "Israel and Palestinians Need a One-State Solution," available at the Al Jazeera website, wrote:

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel could 'never, ever countenance' a fully sovereign Palestinian state. The world should take him at his word. There never was a two-state solution, and there won't be one in any foreseeable future. Instead, that so-called solution serves only to enable Israel's continued oppression, empowering cynics and hard-liners and perpetuating a never-ending cycle of conflict. The only viable resolution is to unite Israel and the territories into a single state...

Israel justifies its mistreatment of Palestinians by claiming that Arabs are not its responsibility; whether they live within Israel or the occupied territories, they all ultimately belong in the unsettled West Bank and should be provided for by their own government — an attitude emphasized by Israel's recent nationality law, which defines the country as an explicitly, perhaps exclusively Jewish state.

But in a unified Israel, Arabs would be the majority if afforded the same right to return that the Jewish diaspora has; there are 3 million registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. And demographic projections suggest Jews will soon be the minority even without considering the Palestinian diaspora. Accordingly, Palestinians would have much more leverage in a one-state scenario; their quest would then be for equitable power sharing and civil rights."

"The next diplomatic formula that will replace the 'two states for two peoples' will be a civilian formula. All the people between the Jordan and the sea have the same right to equality, justice and freedom. In other words, there is a very reasonable chance that there will be only one state between the Jordan and the sea - neither ours nor theirs but a mutual one...

The conceptual framework will be agreed upon - a democratic state that belongs to all of its citizens. The practicable substance could be fertile ground for arguments and creativity. This is an opportunity worth taking, despite our grand experience of missing every opportunity and accusing everyone else except ourselves."

Ali Abunimah, MA, Co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, in an Apr. 24, 2014 Op-Ed for the New York Times titled "Only a Single-State Solution Will Bring Peace," wrote:

"Efforts to 'solve' the situation by creating separate, ethnically homogenous states for the colonizing society, on the one hand, and for the victims of the colonization, on the other - along the lines of apartheid South Africa's Bantustan system - have failed.

The remaining route to a just peace would be a historic agreement to dismantle this colonial reality; it would transform Israeli Jews from a settler-colonial garrison society, and Palestinians from a subjugated people, into citizens of a common state committed to protecting the rights of all. Painstaking work would be needed to reverse the gross inequalities that are the consequence of the purposeful dispossession of the Palestinians."

Yonatan Amir, Co-founder of the Erev Rav journal, in a Mar. 23, 2015 article for +972 titled "It's Time for a One-State Solution," available from 972mag.com, wrote:

"There is no use convincing the Jewish public to support the two-state solution, especially when over 500,000 settlers live beyond the Green Line and there is no guarantee that a Palestinian state will not be the source of terror against Israelis. The only way forward is to grant full equality to all...

Even if we assume that we can convince a large percentage of settlers to evacuate the West Bank, and assuming the Israeli economy will be able to deal with the price, and assuming that a state that was unable to take care of thousands of Gaza evacuees will be able to take care of hundreds of thousands of evacuees from Judea and Samaria, and assuming that both sides will agree to allow visits to each other's holy sites, and assuming the Palestinians will be satisfied with a demilitarized 21 percent of their historic homeland, and assuming that they will agree to give up on the right of return, and assuming we find a solution that will reconnect Gaza and the West Bank, and assuming that the agreement will be accepted by the majority of Palestinians (and not just a handful of suits in Ramallah). Even if we assume all these to be true, after Oslo and the disengagement, who can guarantee that missiles won't strike central Israel a month after an agreement is signed?"

Joseph Dana, MA, freelance journalist, in a Feb. 13, 2011 interview with +972 titled "Is It Time to Move on to the One-State Solution?" available from 972mag.com, stated:

"The Palestine Papers have given ultimate confirmation that Israel is not interested in an equitable two-state solution with the Palestinians. The secret documents reveal beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the most generous offers of land and security by the Palestinians in a two-state paradigm were rejected by Israel. During these negotiations, and in fact during the last twenty years of serious discussion of a two-state solution, Israel has doubled and redoubled efforts to create facts on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza which render a two-state solution impossible to implement.

Quite simply, Israel has created the one state. This state gives 80% of its citizens (the Jewish population) full democratic and civil rights. 20% of the citizens (Palestinian citizens of Israel) experience institutionalized discrimination in virtually all sectors of civil and political life. The remaining population in the West Bank lives in an apartheid like system of separate and unequal rights under full military occupation by Israel. The population of Gaza is surrounded by walls and predator drones which constantly monitor their movements while preventing the growth of a sovereign state.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories form one state under complete Israeli control. Israeli negotiators with the cover of continued American aid and diplomatic assistance have taken every opportunity to stop an equitable two-state solution from coming into existence. Since we live in one state and the two-state solution is dead, why not pragmatically work towards bringing democracy to the residents of this unequal state?"

Patricia Marks Greenfield, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), in a Sep. 26, 2014 Op-Ed for the Washington Post, titled "An Israel Equal for All, Jewish or Not," wrote:

"Gaza and the West Bank may be separated from each other, but they are not separated from Israel. Given this reality, Gaza and the West Bank must inevitably become part of Israel; there can be no two-state solution. And Israel must leave behind its official Jewish identity to acknowledge its multiethnic, multireligious character by providing equal treatment for all… If Gaza and the West Bank were truly part of Israel, and Israel were truly a multiethnic, secular society, there would be progress toward peace."

Dani Dayan, MSc, Chief Foreign Envoy of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (the Yesha Council) at the time of the quote, in a June 7, 2013 opinion piece for the Guardian titled "What You Call 'Settlements' Are on Solid Moral Ground," wrote:

"If partition of this contested land was ever the just solution to the conflict, it ceased the moment one side refused. It was not a mere rejection: they launched repeated assaults to take it all by force. Returning Israel to its indefensible nine-mile waistline would once again place us in mortal danger, while rewarding the aggressor…

In Judea and Samaria there is ample room for many Jews, many Palestinians and peaceful coexistence… After 20 years of failed attempts to reach a two-state solution, isn't it time we admit our failures and move on? The time has come to invest in new, innovative paths to peace that unite people through acts of mutual respect."

Rubi Rivlin, LLB, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, in a July 15, 2010 article for Haaretz titled "The Land Is Not Divisible," wrote:

"There is a conflict in the Middle East between two entities, and they're both right, each in their own way. This is our only home, and therefore all kinds of solutions can be found. One could establish a system in one state in which Judea and Samaria are jointly held. The Jews would vote for a Jewish parliament and the Palestinians for an Arab parliament, and we would create a system in which life is shared. But these are things that will take time. Anyone who thinks that there are shortcuts is talking nonsense. As long as Islamic fundamentalism thinks that Jews are forbidden to settle in the Holy Land, we have a problem. It will not be resolved by an agreement, even if we obtain a promise from all the Arab states that it will be fine.

So if people say to me: Decide one state or division of the Land of Israel, I say that division is the bigger danger."

Yossi Dagan, MA, Head of the Samaria (Shomron) Regional Council, an Israeli regional council providing municipal services to 29 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in an Aug. 10, 2015 interview with Arutz Sheva titled "Meet Yossi Dagan: The Man Fronting the Battle for Samaria," available from the Israel Nation News website, in response to the question "What About a Palestinian State?," stated:

"Anyone who went on our day trip [to the Shomron and a central mountain in the West Bank] realized the dangerous impossibility of establishing a Palestinian state overlooking the coastal plain and turning Israel into a narrow ribbon. A 15 mile wide ribbon. With Samaria, it becomes 70 miles wide.

I also show them the hostile Balata refugee camp on the mountain near Shechem (Nablus) overlooking the coast. They realize that a Palestinian Arab state not only doesn't solve the demographic problem, it exacerbates it, brings 5 million ISIS members to our doorstep, three miles from Kfar Saba. Only someone who wants to see Israel destroyed could advocate that."

Ilan Pappe, PhD, Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter (UK), in a July 5, 2013 interview with Al Jazeera titled "Q&A: Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe," stated:

"I believe in the one-state solution as the only just and functional settlement for the conflict. I think anyone who is more than five minutes on the ground in the West Bank realises there is no space there for an independent Palestinian state. And moreover, anyone who ponders a bit deeper about the reasons for the conflict understands that only such a political outfit could respond to all aspects of the conflict: the dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948, the discrimination against the Palestinians in Israel and the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."

Antony Loewenstein, Research Associate at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney (Australia), in a July 30, 2012 article for The Conversation titled "A One-State Solution Is the Only Way Forward for Israel and Palestine," wrote:

"It's beyond time to declare partition of the land both unworkable and unethical. Despite 20 years of this fiction, two decades of dreamers, cynics, Israel lobbyists, politicians, journalists, officials, liberal Zionists and pundits pronouncing the two-state solution the only game in town, it's over. Finished. Israel killed it by pursuing its natural Zionist, expansionist tendencies. The result is that Israel has succeeded in conquering the West Bank but ended its chances of remaining a Jewish state… The only viable alternative, and one gaining increasing traction, is the one-state solution… A one-state equation isn't about dismissing or ignoring Jewish history, but recognising the land is shared between two peoples and a soon-to-be minority Jewish population has no legal or ethical right to control a majority Arab people.

On its current path, despite some mainstream Israeli politicians advocating the illegal annexation of the West Bank to create an indefinite apartheid state, Israel will become increasingly ghettoised and militarised, convincing once-proud diaspora supporters to decide between their morality and Zionist loyalties. The time for a one-state solution has surely come."

"The two-state solution is already dead. There is no place for the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria. Any attempt to establish a state there will be bad for the Palestinians. Like I said, most of them don't want that...

The current situation is a mistake that must be corrected, and Israel must annex all of Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian Authority has no good health-care system or policing system in all of Judea and Samaria. The whole idea of establishing a Palestinian state here is not realistic at all. It cannot sustain itself, and many of the Palestinian residents would like to leave the area. Their lives are terrible. There's a lot of corruption here."

Tariq Ali, writer, journalist, and filmmaker, in a speech uploaded to YouTube on May 14, 2013, titled "Tariq Ali – A Two State Solution Is Impossible!," stated:

"I think that that time [for a two-state solution] is gone. It went two years after the Oslo Accords were signed. And it's very, very clear to me that a two-state solution just isn't possible. Where are they going to have the second state? Who is going to remove all these Israeli settlements from Palestinian land, that encroach on more and more territory? Who is going to stop the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, which encroach on more and more Palestinian territory?...

The Israelis, by what they are doing, have themselves made a two-state solution impossible...

[F]or me there is no other way out now, except arguing, fighting for a one-state solution."

Ghada Karmi, MD, PhD, Honorary Research Fellow and Assistant Lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter (UK), in a Sep. 20, 2012 article for the Guardian titled "Palestinians Need a One-State Solution," wrote:

"Few would dispute the Palestinian entitlement to a state, but it simply cannot be achieved given the present reality. It was always folly to pursue the two-state solution in a context that militated against its ever happening. Today's Israel-Palestine is demonstrably one state, impossible to divide. But it is a discriminatory state operating an apartheid-style system against the Palestinians with impunity. Gross economic inequality is one indicator of this system.

This situation demands a new Palestinian strategy, a Plan B that converts the Palestinian struggle for two states into one for equal rights within what is now a unitary state ruled by Israel. The first step in this plan requires a dismantlement of the PA as currently constituted, or at least a change of direction for the Palestinian leadership…

The PA's new relationship with Israel should be restricted to pursuing the rights of its occupied people, including the right to political resistance. The PA should lead the campaign to prepare Palestinians for the abandonment of the two-state idea and the struggle for equal rights instead. Without a middleman to hide behind, the reality of Israel's occupation will be exposed, and the logic of a civil rights struggle will be inarguable."

Steven Plaut, PhD, Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Haifa (Israel), in a July 11, 2012 article for Frontpage Mag titled "Israeli Settlements: Not Just Legal, But Necessary," wrote:

"Life in Israel would be impossible with the West Bank serving as a 'Palestinian State,' basically a clone of Hamastan in Gaza. It is thus critical to do everything to prevent that from happening... Every accord or 'deal' that provides for any sort of 'Palestinian' state or sovereignty or entity operating outside Israeli control in the West Bank will produce the scenario of the previous point, mass terrorist aggression from 'Palestine,' making life in Israel impossible. It does not matter what would be written in any accord or treaty."

"The two-state solution is dead. There is no longer any hope for peace or justice in this solution, if there ever was to begin with. There was a time when Israel could have accepted a Palestinian state along the pre-June 1967 armistice line, with minor and mutually agreed upon revisions of the final border, and thereby 'secure' its 'gains' from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war...

The siege must end. The occupation must end. The violence must end. The rejection of elementary legal and moral principles must end. Only a just solution can bring a permanent peace, and there is today only but one just solution.

The Arabs proposed it before Israel existed, only to have it rejected by the Zionists and their Western benefactors–a single, united, democratic state with a constitution and representative government that recognizes the equal rights of all and protects the rights of the minority.

That was the only truly just solution in 1948, and it remains the only truly just solution today."

Russell Sitrit-Leibovich, journalist for the Prince Arthur Herald at the time of the quote, in a Sep. 21, 2011 article for the Prince Arthur Herald titled "The Two State Solution Isn't An Option," wrote:

"A Palestinian state of the kind proposed in the two state solution is an existential threat to the state of Israel. Furthermore, it is a historical travesty to expel half a million Jews in order to create a 23rd Arab state. Given that at least four generations of Palestinians have been raised on incitement and hatred of Israel, a weakened Israel with its pre-1967 borders would be an invitation to more war, not a guarantee for peace. Practically, there is no room for two viable states in a territory the size of New Jersey. The logic of having 80% of Israel's population living on the coastal lowlands with a Palestinian state occupying the strategic heights seems unfathomable. The two-state solution has been tried and failed many times. Israel must disabuse itself and the international community of its feasibility."

Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), in a Mar. 29, 2007 article by Ezra HaLevi for Arutz Sheva titled "Poll: Most Americans Oppose Palestinian State, More Concessions," available from the Israel National News website, was quoted:

"Americans understand that establishing a Palestinian state would simply result in but another terrorist state in the Middle East, which is the last thing America needs in its efforts to bring peace and security to the region. The American public has shown that it is completely against appeasing this Palestinian terror regime by offering any more concessions to it."

Virginia Tilley, PhD, Associate Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges at the time of the quote, in a 2005 book titled The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock, wrote:

"The two-state option has been eliminated as a practical solution in two senses. First and most graphically, Jewish settlements have carved Palestinian territory into a vestige too small to sustain a viable national society… Even if most settlers claimed they would leave in exchange for financial compensation (as some surveys indicated), this massive grid's economic, political, and demographic weight rendered it a politically immovable object…

The second sense in which the two-state solution has died is that even if a Palestinian 'state' were declared in this dismembered enclave, it can bring only continuing instability. The resulting Palestinian statelet would be blocked off physically from the Israeli economy, its major cities would be cut off from each other, and its government would be unable to control the territory's water resources, develop its agriculture, or manage its trade with neighboring states...

[T]he one-state solution, would resolve the entire conflict in one magisterial gesture and is already an impending reality. It would absorb all the entrenched populations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River into one unified state...

[The] one-state option must therefore be brought onto the table: some way must be found to make sense of Israeli-Palestinian interdependence by consolidating the land into one democratic state, which will serve all its citizens equally and in which the Jewish national home can find a new and more secure configuration no longer requiring a Jewish majority or Jewish ethnic dominion over the state."